The idea of looking after yourself is no longer an activity restricted to a reliance on common sense. Where professional sport led, the rest of us followed, and today, personal well-being is a science. The volume of personal data that we can capture, and the depth in which we can analyze it, have provided new insights into how we should be eating, drinking, sleeping, living and exercising.

The mainstream cultural acceptance of fitness-related data logging can really only be attributed to the sporting world’s superbrands. Nike+ and Adidas’ miCoach, for some time, have dominated the market, and have been pushed by their respective parent companies at every opportunity. As the fitness app market has matured, however, numerous apps from infinitely smaller development teams have become some of the most popular offerings in the genre.

One iOS product which falls into this category is Moves. It’s an app which can best be described as a smart pedometer, and its simplicity and high quality design have won it a significant fan base over on the Apple-flavoured side of mobile computing. But now, Moves is making an entry into the Google Play store, and I got the chance to play with the pre-release version. Here’s how I got on…

Ever since, it’s been quite the conversation starter, with people asking me what it is and what it does and how it works. Well, using a heart-rate monitor and pedometer, the Up works hand-in-hand with your Android phone, syncing data and giving you some nice personal analytics through its aptly named Jawbone Jawbone Up Android app.

This week we’ll take a more general approach and suggest various applications and services that save your content in the cloud and synchronize it transparently across devices and platforms. Whether you read articles and books on various phones and tablets, or need your notes and tasks sync’ed or simply want to keep track of your expenses across platforms, we’ve got the right apps for you!

I admit, the purpose of this poll isn’t to guilt everyone into remembering their missed New Year resolutions. After all, I wouldn’t be here to judge, I let my own resolution slide away as I fell miserably sick twice since the beginning of the year. However, now that I’m doing better, I went through some of our recent fitness posts on Android.Appstorm and checked the slew of great apps and tools that I could use.

There’s Brendan’s great roundup of 35 health and fitness apps, and Dean’s review of Zombies, Run! which, of all things, uses the threat of zombies to encourage you to run longer and faster. Zombies! Ha! Have we, as a human race, gotten lazy to a point where we need the threat of the living dead chewing at us to move off the couch? Oh, but I digress.

I’m personally a swimmer more than a runner, but when I do run, I do it indoors on a treadmill. In both instances, it’s hard to find good apps to track my progress and help me stay motivated. I’ve used Cardiotrainer‘s pedometer along with a heart rate monitor in the past for my treadmill jogs, as well as Workout Trainer for a little bit of indoor exercise, but I have yet to find a good tool for my swimming.

How about you? Do you think that apps help you stay on track more? Is there a certain satisfaction to seeing your progress charted out to you? And do you find that the social aspect of some of these tools encourages you to keep going, even when you want to quit?

A hungry horde of zombies is chasing me. It’s freezing out, pitch dark and my feet are soaking wet. I’ve given up avoiding the puddles in favour of avoiding them. Kasabian’s album Empire blares giving me the boost I need to lift my knees higher and move quicker through the woods. Overhanging branches slap me across the face. Deep down I’m glad it’s dark.

I imagine this looks hilarious.

Running is the most common way to get fit and the most common reason to quit. Most use the carrot and stick motivation system of rewards to drive themselves forward. It turns out having zombies, hungry for brains, hot on your heels is much better. Want to run faster and for longer? Run for your life with Zombies, Run!

With the turn of the New Year, health and fitness are topics that seem to be on everyone’s mind. Whether you set out on a New Year’s resolution or you’re simply looking to get healthier this year, there are plenty of apps out there to help you out.

Traditionally, technology didn’t always go hand-in-hand with health and fitness. However, due to the fact that most of us always have smartphones with us, it makes sense to try and get the most out of our devices. If you are the type that typically has their phone on them, there are some great tools that you can use to help get yourself into shape and into good health.

You always want to be in the best shape possible; feeling fit and healthy increases confidence and decreases stress – and of course keeping yourself healthy is important for avoiding nasty diseases and physical pain. However, it can be hard to achieve this without the right support.

Today I’ll be looking at 50 applications that will help you to get fitter. Each of these apps can easily fit into your everyday life, and their assistance in small amounts over a period of time can be a great boost!

Statistically speaking, I’m one of the members of society most likely to end up with a loaded gun shoved in my face. I’m not a cop. Or a soldier. I’ve never even held a gun before, let alone received any formal training. It’s all down to the fact that, believe it or not, this writing stuff doesn’t pay all the bills so I have to work another job while I attend college. That job is at a 24/7 petrol station and for some reason or another all the Dirty Harrys out there enjoy holding them up – hence the above average statistical probability.

There’s a baseball bat in the back office. We staff have never been given any formal instructions as to its use – I imagine for a whole plethora of legal reasons – but it’s fairly obvious. I mean, we don’t even play baseball in this country.

The other night I was cross-checking some invoices while a drunk guy waddled around the forecourt and I got to thinking; what would I do if it happened right now? Sprint for the exit? Reach for the bat? I honestly don’t know and worrying about it is silly. Yet we still ask ourselves ‘what if?’.

It’s that time of the year again when we all resolve – among other things – to keep the resolutions we make for ourselves every year. To be honest, I’ve been guilty of breaking new year’s resolutions within as little as a week and yet I take a shot at them every year. Exercising more, controlling what I eat, working less and playing more. We all say we want to do it, right? The problem is, it’s just really really hard to keep track of all of these things when we have so much else going on in our lives!

At least, that’s the excuse I’ve been giving myself for a while now.

This year will be different, though. I’m going to be a little proactive and try to use technology to my advantage in ensuring I don’t have that one excuse in 2012. So here is a roundup of over 30 Android Apps that let you track your goals – whatever the kind – and help make sure you stick with them as long as possible.